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T O P I C R E V I E W

Auburnaut

I was hoping someone here can help with this.

On crewpatches.com, the website claims that there are prototype plastic back Lion Brothers Apollo patches from the 1980s. They do look different from the 1970s Lion Brothers patches.

I have purchased a set of these. They have tails. So I am wondering if they are accepted as Lion Brothers remakes from the 1980s or if the crewpatches site is incorrect.

From what I read on crewpatches, the person writing the article is making an educated guess. Is their any proof that Lion Brothers made these type patches for Apollo in the 1980s or did someone make replicas?

Besixdouze

Any chance you could post a picture of the fronts and backs of these patches you have purchased?

Auburnaut

Auburnaut

Auburnaut

spaced out

quote:Originally posted by Auburnaut:From what I read on crewpatches, the person writing the article is making an educated guess. Is their any proof that Lion Brothers made these type patches for Apollo in the 1980s or did someone make replicas?

My take on these patches was indeed just an educated guess and there is no proof of their origin that I know of.

I started writing a longer reply with justifications as to why I think these are likely LB prototypes rather than replicas but on re-reading my original page I think everything I wrote back then still stands.

I would only add maybe that in addition to the pattern on the plastic which matches the LB style used in the Shuttle period, some of the patches also show another common feature of Lion Brothers patches - namely the long jump stitches running out to the left and right sides of the patch.

This is most visible on the backs of the Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 patches and is something I personally believe is very characteristic of patches manufactured by Lion Brothers.

Besixdouze

Seems unlikely to me that anyone would take the time and trouble to manufacture these in the hope of passing them off as original Lion Brothers patches. Bearing in mind their similarity to the 4" versions - right down to including the hallmarks - I think Chris is probably pretty close to the mark in his initial assessment. Out of interest, did you manage to acquire a full set - 1 though 17 - or just the ones you've posted images of and where did you find them?

Auburnaut

I have Apollo 1, and 7-17. Found them on eBay (111220835742). Also from seller:

I think they are all patches but not positive... we have a cleaning business and helped an older gentleman clean a family members estate — he gave them to us. I understood that family member was an astronaut and these belonged to him (there was a ton of NASA memorabilia there). I honestly don't know much about them otherwise... they are very clean and in wonderful condition!

That's all I got from the seller.

Besixdouze

Great find. I'd assumed all they were all regular 4" Lion patches when I first saw them so didn't give them much afterthought but my interest was piqued when I saw Kevin had engaged in some last minute bidding on them. With the size of image posted though, I still couldn't see anything special. If you were expecting to receive the usual 4" versions, I think you got lucky there

Kevin T. Randall

It was the Lion Brothers Shuttle patches which included the Rare ALT patch, plus what looked like a possible Swissartex STS-31 patch, which drew me to bid on this lot, plus a full set of Apollo Lion Brothers patches as well.

I already have a complete set of Lion Brothers plastic coated backed prototype patches, which are the same ones that are on the crewpatches website. I bought them from Chris when he put them up for sale a few years ago.These ones in the images above look identical to the ones I have.

Ken Havekotte

Just curious to know what is for sure known about the LB-plastic backing patches?

I did examine others in the set referred to, however, there were different fabrics, thread colors, and sizes not present in the well-known LB set of non-plastic backings.

Other observations that came to my attention was the smaller size of the Apollo 14 patch than the original with a different gold metallic thread used, no hidden "17" in the Apollo 17 plastic-back version, and with other differences in the Apollo 12 patch. There was also a bright gold metallic thread used for the "APOLLO 11" patch production not present in the more common version.

To be honest, though, I've never seen nor examined up-close during my 40+ year space-buying career ANY so-called LB plastic-backing patches beforehand until I saw this set a couple weeks ago.

How can we be certain if they're LB-produced or not?

Auburnaut

It looks like all that anyone on here knows of came in sets and were estate sale type items. Is that 3 or 4 know sets on this forum?

Liembo

Some Lion Brothers' coated-back Skylab patches appeared on eBay recently and just for the sake of cataloging the images to complement the scans above, here are some photos of the front and back. I'm not sure what to make of them.

The Skylab I patch is pretty crudely executed compared to the other two.